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All right, all right - just to get it back on topic a bit, my husband and I are thinking about a river cruise through Provence next year, from Lyon to Barcelona, and one of theside trips Biot, if I remember correctly.

I don't know, we managed to be intensely elitist and artsy-craftsy simultaneously. :D

I gave you my serious answer somewhere above. ;)

I saw (and appreciated) that. I do think, however, it was a bit incomplete. While it is true that some of the appreciation of "hand crafted" or artisan or non-WalMart goods is "rarified," it is also true the economies that don't rely upon mass production and distribution produce a lot of very superior "ordinary" products. Again, I give the example of tomatoes (can Dan Quayle spell that?). Tomatoes are not my favorite vegetable (or fruit, if you're being picky), but they are much better in France (and elsewhere in Europe) than in the US (on a general basis). There, they are rarely, if ever, hydroponic, and actually have some taste above that of watered down paper.

I guess the general point I'm making is that the process of mass production and distribution filters out a lot of good stuff, not just "rarified" stuff.

All right, all right - just to get it back on topic a bit, my husband and I are thinking about a river cruise through Provence next year, from Lyon to Barcelona, and one of theside trips Biot, if I remember correctly.

While that's not exactly "on topic," if you do go there are several things you should do:

1. Before starting in Lyon, go to Paul Bocuseís restaurant and have the truffle soup
2. Make sure you see the Gorges du Verdun
3. If you go to Biot, take your checkbook/credit card, as you'll want to buy lots of signature glassware. They'll arrange for shipping back to the US
4. Drink lots of a relatively inexpensive white, the wines of Cassis
5. Have fun as the south of France is truly "God's country"

I saw (and appreciated) that. I do think, however, it was a bit incomplete. While it is true that some of the appreciation of "hand crafted" or artisan or non-WalMart goods is "rarified," it is also true the economies that don't rely upon mass production and distribution produce a lot of very superior "ordinary" products. Again, I give the example of tomatoes (can Dan Quayle spell that?). Tomatoes are not my favorite vegetable (or fruit, if you're being picky), but they are much better in France (and elsewhere in Europe) than in the US (on a general basis). There, they are rarely, if ever, hydroponic, and actually have some taste above that of watered down paper.

I guess the general point I'm making is that the process of mass production and distribution filters out a lot of good stuff, not just "rarified" stuff.

I didn't mean rarefied in terms of money, I meant it in terms of perceived value/status. Where I live, heirloom tomatoes and elk jerky are commonplace items. Outsiders find them exotic and high quality. We think of them as the normal byproducts of our lifestyles.

It's much the same with many products and concerns. Sweet corn that you can eat raw, crab cakes, and excellent gumbo are just the normal items in some locales. It's people who are removed from any thing other than mass produced goods who find these items exotic and attractive. Corn is corn, anybody can make a crab cake, and gumbo is really just a stew. I'd rather have a steak, frankly.

Often, it's the perception of uniqueness, status, or insider knowledge that raises a commonplace item or experience to another level.

I didn't mean rarefied in terms of money, I meant it in terms of perceived value/status. Where I live, heirloom tomatoes and elk jerky are commonplace items. Outsiders find them exotic and high quality. We think of them as the normal byproducts of our lifestyles.

It's much the same with many products and concerns. Sweet corn that you can eat raw, crab cakes, and excellent gumbo are just the normal items in some locales. It's people who are removed from any thing other than mass produced goods who find these items exotic and attractive. Corn is corn, anybody can make a crab cake, and gumbo is really just a stew. I'd rather have a steak, frankly.

Often, it's the perception of uniqueness, status, or insider knowledge that raises a commonplace item or experience to another level.

Indeed, but contrast them with the tomatoes that most Americans buy in their mass produced Levittowns and you'll see the point I'm making. Clearly, there are many, many pockets in a land of 300M people wherein local products hold supremacy. However, in our working example, most Americans buy mass-farmed (?) tomatoes, grown to feed the world and the US, and they are tasteless. It's not an affectation, it's a fact that can be extended to many other products and services.